


once i called you brother

by bluesandbirds



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Dream Smp, Family Crynamics, Family Dynamics, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, but then, im just using family crynamics as a tag now, lost family, not a songfic i just rly liked the lyrics for the summary and title, smpearth - Freeform, theres one scene of fluff really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesandbirds/pseuds/bluesandbirds
Summary: once i thought the chance to make you laughwas all i ever wantedA boy from nowhere meets a man who's been everywhere.TommyInnit and Technoblade. enemies, allies, and barely brothers.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 78
Kudos: 629
Collections: mhm pain





	once i called you brother

**Author's Note:**

> lyrics from "the plagues" from prince of egypt
> 
> kind of a spiritual successor to "guilty not remorseful" in a way i guess, the vibes are similar i think

_The Blade_.

Man of myth. Monster of legend.

He's a whisper in lobbies. A story for warriors. A warning for fools.

_The Blade._

Blood God. Emperor of Ice. World Conqueror.

Catch a glimpse of glaring red eyes across the battlefield and reflect on your last interactions with your loved ones. Have your white flags ready when that blue and white banner is raised. Know your next words will be your last.

Technoblade cannot be everywhere at once yet his presence is felt everywhere, from the crowded lobbies of Bedwars to the humble islands of Skyblock.

The Dream SMP is no different. 

He is not present in these lands, but he exists in taunts to the server's own god or comments from a boy with whom he shares history.

_"Alrighty, I've been here before, right?"_

_"Listen, Techn—Dream..."_

These whispers and stories and warnings bring The Blood God where he is not.

_"You better leave him alone. Don't make Tommy call his big brother on you."_

_Sapnap scoffs. "I'm not afraid of Admin Soot. The guy has no power here."_

_Tubbo laughs. "No, not Wilbur. Technoblade."_

_With startling clatter, Sapnap's pickaxe falls through his hands. He gapes at the boy._

_Cackling, Tubbo says, "Oh man, you should sees the look on your face."_

_"You're fucking with me," Sapnap says, but his tan complexion has gone a ghostly white._

_"Technoblade," Tubbo crows, "Technoblade's gonna kick your ass."_

_"You know Technoblade?" Purpled skeptically eyes the boy twirling two sticks in his hands._

_A grin cuts across Tommy's face, all cockiness and feral at the edges. He tosses a stick, catching it with unnecessary flourish._

_"I went to war with Technoblade."_

It's surprisingly easy to forget. Tommy is such a strange and boisterous kid, it's hard to fathom that he has any relation to The Blade.

Then, of course, Tommy will swing his sword in a move that Dream recognizes from a hundred blocks away. Randomly, he'll throw a three syllable word into conversation with the grace of bibliophile and inflection that's not his own. He'll tell a story about _Blade_ and _Bedwars_ and _a library_ and no one will be able to get it off their minds for the rest of the day.

_"It's true then? This kid's the Blood God's little brother?'_

_Dream shrugs. "I don't know about_ brother _exactly, but they know each other. They're close."_

_Sapnap groans. "It's like we're babysitting a grenade."_

_"And the grenade's family are a tank and a nuke." Dream pats his shoulder. "_ _Just don't start any wars with him and you'll never have to worry."_

They start a war with him.

They light TNT in his home and smile when he shouts and swears at them.

They trap him in a blackstone room where Dream sets him alight.

Dream puts an arrow through his heart on the little oak plank path he loved to walk and watches him bleed out in his brother's arms.

And yet, the Blood God never shows.

_"Who do you think will win? My bets on our boy, Dream, but feel free to be wrong."  
_

_Niki stays silent, a small frown on her face._

_"I think it could go either way," Tubbo offers._

_"Whose side are you on, Tommy?"_

_"Techno, of course," Tommy says, leaning in towards the screen. A smile flits across his face when the camera zooms in on Technoblade. Blue eyes gleam. "He never dies," he whispers reverently._

_The community house goes quiet at that._ _They exchange looks behind the boy's back._

_When Techno does win, Tommy's grin is the brightest it's ever been, a glowing pride that comes from a personal victory._

The pride. The talk. The movement. The guts. All of it points to one blinding, glowstone sign.

_This kid is the Blade's._

_Do not fuck with him._

Apparently, nobody's told Jschlatt.

_Technoblade joined the game._

* * *

For all the brass he pulls, Tommy's never actually called Technoblade his brother. Not out loud. Not to his face. Not to anyone's face. 

It's just something he's thought to himself alone in his _very powerful_ _home_ , remembering fights that turned into playful sparring matches, deep snickers that surprised the both of them, waking up to a frantic Bitzel muttering about hypothermia and something heavy and red covering his shivering frame.

Tommy knows that love is earned. That if he does well in some Championships, then his place in the family is secured. That if he wins enough wars then his brothers will love him again. That maybe, if he reclaims L’Manburg, Wilbur will stop acting so wrong.

_"You're never gonna be president, Tommy."_

And that's it.

He failed and they all left.

He didn't earn it.

He couldn't be the president, couldn't be the hero, and they realized he's got nothing to offer but borrowed words and the teachings of traitors. (He wore Schlatt's suit. Now he wears Wilbur's coat.)

They don't want, love, or care about him anymore.

_“Because I’m not the vice president.”_

_"We win wars through our_ _wor_ _ds,"_ his brother once taught him.

 _"The only universal language is violence,"_ his brother now teaches him.

At the beginning of L'Manburg, he made the choice to not fight fire with fire, to not grief Dream's house. They went to war anyway.

Now, he griefs George's. L'Manburg avoids war. ~~(At least for now.)~~

Dream rattles something off about _accountability_ and _responsibility_ like Tommy hasn't paid and isn't still paying for actions that weren't his own.

Tommy sits in his _Tnret_ and wonders what the lesson here is.

* * *

Tommy is 10 and too big for his boots.

He hears the whispers, the warnings, and the stories, and he inhales them like any hungry young boy. He chases them to a crowded plaza in Hypixel, eager eyes zeroing in on one person who sticks out in the masses.

"Blade! Blade!" He ducks and weaves his way through the crowd towards that tall figure in red. Tommy's small and slippery, something that he's always used to his advantage.

He skids to a stop in front of the man (who, upon later reflection was really more of a boy like himself) and lets his mouth run wild. "The Blade! Holy shit! I have something to help you with the war!" And then he thrusts out his hands, clutched in which is a bulging cloth sack.

A single eyebrow raised, Technoblade takes the proffered bag and looks in to see stacks of Revenant Flesh.

"...Good work, kid."

Tommy beams. "Tommy. TommyInnit. You're not gonna wanna forget my name."

One year later, they will meet again on the server of SMPEarth.

Technoblade does not recognize the boy who offered his help or remember the name TommyInnit (after all Tommy is not the first kid to be enchanted by whispers), but there is something that flickers at the back of his mind when the ratty zombie child calls him _The Blade._

* * *

Technoblade visits him in exile. Not a visit like going to see a family member on vacation, but a visit like a trip to the zoo to point and gawk at the caged animals.

Tommy didn't miss him, isn't glad to see him, has never wondered about how anarchy has been treating him. He shouts and shoves, none of which moves the man from where he trails behind, cackling and ridiculing.

Through his rage, Tommy can't help but observe the other man. He's traded the blood red gown for soft, pale blues. (Blue is just as much of a warning flag. Tommy's been to war with soft, pale blues.) Technoblade looks... fufilled? _..._ at peace? _... h_ _appier_ , maybe? Though, Tommy's not sure what Techno looks like happy, if he's ever seen The Blade truly happy. ( _You have_ , a little voice whispers.) _It doesn't matter_ , he reminds himself. _You don't care._

Techno says something and Tommy laughs, forgetting for a moment about exile and war and betrayal. It was easy, too easy, to slip back in to cracking jokes and listening to his brothers talk. But, of course, that's Ghostbur, not Wilbur, and Technoblade hasn't been his brother since he shot a firework rocket at his best friend. ~~(The one who just exiled you?)~~

He scowls and swears at him, but Techno's got that dumb, smug smirk on his pig face.

Tommy wonders if it gratifies him to know he can still make _the zombie child_ laugh. He wonders if it matters.

Talking to Techno is frustratingly easy, a rhythm he has to force himself not to get comfortable with for fear of forgetting where they stand. He hates every second of it.

For a reason Tommy can't name, he tells him about the plan they never got the chance to execute.

_“You were gonna to come to me for help?”_

It sounds stupid when he says it out loud. Maybe it was even stupid the first time, they all just got caught up in the moment, but hearing the sheer disbelief from Techno himself makes Tommy flush in indignation.

 _You would've wanted me to_ , he bites back, _once upon a time._

Instead, he shouts more curses and forces himself to not ask the man to stay.

* * *

Tommy is 13 and standing over the remains of Business Bay's storage area.

The rest of his boys are inside, licking their wounds and recovering from the events of the day.

He put on his brave face for them, after all, he is the "king warrior."

_"I had to motivate them, alright, if I'm not—if their leader isn't motivated, they're not motivated, alright. That's just how it works. You're only motivated if the person on top of you's motivated."_

But inside he feels like crumbling to bits.

Ashes. That's all they have left. Years of work and trade and memories burnt to black by the Antarctic Empire.

The familiar sound of an airplane engine makes him look up.

Squinting through floating specks of black and falling white, Tommy catches a glimpse of the insignia on the side of the plane and deflates.

He’s so tired.

He turns back to the wreckage, not even looking when the engine splutters to a stop and there's the crunching of snow behind him. 

“I heard what happened.”

“What do you want?"

Technoblade isn't a sore winner. (Though there's a squid out there who might disagree.) He wouldn't fly all the way to Business Bay just to kick a kid who's already down. That means he's here with something worse than ridicule. Pity.

“Tommy…”

He plasters on his _annoying child, bully me_ face. “It’s war, big man. Shit happens.”

A gloved hand touches his arm. "Tommy, if anyone gives you trouble—and I mean serious trouble, not the kind we have—you tell me.”

Tommy hears an echo of similar words from the man who just burnt down everything he’s worked for.

“You hate me,” he says, statement bitter in his mouth.

“Now, you know that’s not true.”

Tommy mulls it over, tests the weight of Techno's words in his mind.

He drops his head in a nod. “Okay.”

"Promise."

He scoffs. "Really?"

"Yes," Technoblade says seriously.

Tommy rolls his eyes. "I pinky promise, Technoblade." He sticks out his little finger like a challenge.

With all the dignity of the Blood God, Techno interlocks their fingers. 

And the oath is sworn.

It’s a promise Tommy makes good on.

_"And I hate to say it to you, but there's one thing I have that you'll never, ever, ever have..."_

Tommy dances through life with reckless abandon and a cocksure smirk because there's nothing like the certainty that you'll have the Blood God on your side when you're backed in a corner.

**_"I have the Blade."_ **

But then, Tommy is 16 and standing in a cataclysm, once again watching everything he’s worked for get destroyed by a man who swore to protect him. 

And once again, Tommy is so goddamn tired.

* * *

Technoblade is 16 and too big for his boots. His name darkens the mouths of every intelligent being on this side of the universe.

A figure of legend already, stories making him even larger than his barely over a decade and a half years of age. His excellence in every area of battle is unprecedented, his every step is record breaking.

Technoblade is in the midst of a war, not one fought with swords but instead time and patience. His minions are hard at work everyday. He receives help from the most experienced of allies. He spends hours laboring under the unforgiving sun, fighting to keep ahead of his potato rival.

He's bored.

And so it goes like this, Technoblade is invited to join a server. 

His tall, brown haired friend from competitions past has a smile and an offer of _fun, chaos, uncharted territories_ for him. 

_How'd you like the rule the world?_ he hears.

With a ruthless grin, he accepts.

* * *

Technoblade is 17 and well on his way to dominating the planet.

At his right-hand side is a friend. They're not family, but the older man tightens his armor for him and tells him to eat things with more nutritional value than a potato.

He collects titles like music discs and absolutely nothing stands in his way that can't be wiped out with an airstrike or swing of his sword.

Well, there's one thing.

A pest. Annoying, little bug he can't flick off.

 _TommyTrusty_ as no one calls him. _TommyInnit_ as he's known. _Zombie Child_ as he's remembered.

The child and his faction of even more children, a permanent thorn in The Blade's side. They've been at war for a year and Tommy collects defeat like Techno collects titles, but he still comes back to fight every time.

He is not impressed by his tenacity. He is not endeared by his poorly hidden adoration. He is not amused by his wit or jokes.

(He doesn't spend hours after a battle with the Dynmap open, tracking one particular icon back to Business Bay.)

Technoblade is 17 and he has no family. He has a friend who makes sure he sleeps. He has a friend who creates bridges and mischief. He has a bug that he still hasn't squashed.

* * *

They spend a Christmas together, just the night, a lazy celebration on the couch, all of them worn out from the day festivities with their factions.

Techno knows for a fact that Business Bay did not skimp on Christmas Day fun judging from the angry messages in chat and faint sounds of explosions he'd been hearing. TommyInnit carved his name into the naughty list. 

But right now, he's just a tired boy with a hot chocolate mustache and Techno is far past the stage of pretending not to be a little bit fond of this stupid kid.

Bright blue eyes beg him for some entertainment, so Techno sighs and grabs _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_ off the shelf.

 _"Seriously? What happened to_ ' _A Christmas Carol' or 'The Nutcracker'?_ " _Wilbur groans._

_"Beggars can't be choosers," Techno says, "Now, listen..."_

Philza's got a grin he can't keep off his face for the rest of the night.

That's how they fall asleep, sprawled across each other on the couch, wrapped in wool blankets and a red cape.

Calvin takes a picture.

(He accidentally sends it to all-chat instead of faction chat. The next day, Mr. PvP spends his morning fleeing from the Blood God and Angel of Death. When Tommy gets back to the Bay, Luke has already plastered the picture down the side of one of the Business Towers.)

* * *

Technoblade is 18 and the happiest he's ever been.

SMPEarth is coming to a close, but he's got a communicator full of contacts and a future of farming potatoes waiting for him.

There's tearful goodbyes all around which Techno awkwardly bears. It's not that he doesn't feel the same, he just isn't nearly comfortable enough around people like Icebomb and Kara Corvus to give a properly emotional farewell.

Wilbur's planted himself at Techno's side for the duration of the finale, something that he's grateful for. Wilbur's always been his person to lean on for things like this. He really isn't sure what he's going to do when there's endless worlds instead of one ocean between them.

Tommy chatters a mile a minute about some _Dream_ character and an invitation he's received to his server. Techno silently wishes the man luck.

Phil looks at all of them with shining eyes and whispers that he'll miss the little family they've cobbled together during the past three and a half years.

Technoblade never returns it, never claims them as family, but he ruffles Tommy's hair and lets Wilbur pull him into a hug and swears to Phil that he'll take care of himself. 

When it's his turn to go through the portal, he finds himself fighting back waves of emotions he didn't even know he had. He stares for a long time, taking them in. The gold of Tommy's hair. The tilt of Wilbur's mouth. The warmth of Philza's eyes.

He waves goodbye to his home and goes back to where he came from.

* * *

Technoblade never calls Tommy his brother. Never weighs him with that label, even in his head, but he comes when he calls and he laughs with or at him and he teaches him about the world.

Technoblade never says _I love you_ , but he reads his baby brother _The Twelfth Night_ instead of _Hamlet_ and ends Theseus' tale after the Minotaur.

He doesn't tell Tommy the full story until years and wars later, on opposite sides of a rift.

_"Do you want to be a hero, Tommy? THEN DIE LIKE ONE!"_

But underneath the cracking fireworks and the deafening explosions and the screeching Withers, maybe he means something else.

_Don't be a hero._

_There's no happy endings for heroes._

_Please, don't be a hero._

Tommy, of course, hears none of this.

Violence, after all, is the only universal language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a deleted scene with techno and wisp that didn't fit because wisp just sneaks into all my writing, maybe ill polish it up and give it a post here or on my tumblr, we'll see
> 
> guyss,, i don't know if this is cohesive in _any_ way i just had so many feeling about this duo and i wanted to scream about them

**Author's Note:**

> i had a deleted scene with techno and wisp that didn't fit because wisp just sneaks into all my writing, maybe ill polish it up and give it a post here or on my tumblr, we'll see
> 
> guyss,, i don't know if this is cohesive in any way i just had so many feeling about this duo and i wanted to scream about them


End file.
